Review of The Severing Crime Edge

Dansai Bunri no Crime Edge by Studio Gokumi was springs 2013 attempt to create a horror-gothic action show with brutal murderers fighting over the death of the Hair Queen. What sounds like a promising show turns to be a rather sad effort in making it as good as it sounds. While I appreciate the goth-atmosphere the show had, it had some serious issues. Story: Dansai Bunri revolves around the middleschooler Kiri Haimura, who comes into contact with the so called Hair Queen, Iwai Mushanokouji. Kiri has magical scissors which allow him to cut the Hair Queens very long non-cutable hair. Through this they become a semi couple and Kirihas to protect her against her enemies, other people with so called Killing Goods, just like Kiris magical scissors.
Problem though is, that this game of hunters trying to kill the Hair Queen is presented in a very strange way, as Dansai Bunri switches from dark to light in a blink of an eye.
The characters do silly moe reactions, the overall tone is inconsistent and borderline retarded at times.
If this was some silly school anime with cute girls doing cute things it would have been okay.
But the themes in Dansai Bunri try to be more serious and on the darker side, so it utterly fails to create any sort of atmosphere.

The pacing is pretty bad, switching from very slow to very fast, but overall felt rushed by the end. The makers come along as amateurs who have no idea how to properly tell a story, stretching some scenes into infinite while rushing everything else as if they were in a hurry.

Not only that but they also have a hard time giving the themes and world enough time to sink properly in. Not that it would matter if we knew more about the lore behind it since the show throws it all out at any point in time they squeeze in slapstick and moe jokes...

Because of that the overall plot feels very weak and nonsensical. And not only that it also ends in a preview for a second season...

Good though were some of the darker elements of the show, it had plenty of blood and A LOT of sexual tension.
It was my personal guilty pleasure of the show, since it was pretty bold and would fit in into a gothic like show like Dansai Bunri tries to be. But as mentioned it couldn't really deliver in that department.

Characters:

Kiri is our protagonist, a middleschooler with magic scissors and a Hairfetish (how convenient).
There isn't much to say about him, we don’t really know much about his life or ideals, other than his past has something to do with the most brutal murderer of all history and he is love with the main heroine Iwai. His character is very childish and naive and I cannot say he is a good protagonist.

Iwai is the so called Hairqueen and besides being nice to people who try to kill her, she is also in love with Kiri. She is weak and never does anything throughout the show but being saved by Kiri.

There are also a bunch of different characters but I don’t really find it necessary to mention any of them, as they are all quite dull and only have their gimmicks that define their characters. Most of them don’t even show up more than 1 or a few times.
The entire cast feels very childish and panders to a younger audience, or mental children, since the themes of the show are not suited for kids.

It’s such a strange dichotomy. The show has all this sexual tension, gore and darkness going on, but is presented in such a moe, slice of life way. The cast is retarded and they all act so cartoony it’s really weird.

Art and Animation

The art in Dansai Bunri is nothing to be in awe. Everything looks very generic and bland, no great talents worked on this and Studio Gokumi isn't really known for their high profile stuff.

The animation quality isn't bad but also not great. It has some good action scenes here and there but mostly wastes its screen time on fanservice and silly chibi faces.

The backgrounds are all totally uninteresting and just blur in with the rest, no effort was made to create an immersive world with great gothic art that fits its themes.

The worst though must be the character designs. They all look really cheap. Their faces totally deformed and some of the look just atrocious.
Why does Kiri have such a bad haircut if he is into cutting hair?
I credit them for giving Iwai a different hairstyle every other episode, but that’s it. The character designs are really bad and childish looking. At least they are sometimes moe.

Besides the bad character designs, the censoring (in the TV version) is also terrible. Bloody scenes were in black and white, and the fanservice we got had “magical white light” shining over it so we don’t see what’s going on... sad sad sad. But I will check out the BD version to see if at least that one has no censorship.

Sound:

At least the sound department doesn't suck.

We get okay voice actors nothing great to mention here.
But the opening is one of my favorites of the season, it’s not great or anything but pretty catchy. The ending was also quite okay, but not as good as the opening

The rest of the soundtrack was neither bad nor good, it was quite solid but not really outstanding or worth listening to.

Enjoyment:

Though Dansai Bunri was a pretty bad show with a lot of problems I still could enjoy it here and there.
At one point I almost dropped it but the Loli Arc got me into it again.
The best was probably the fanservice and sexual tension it had to offer. Some really weird fetishes were going on here and the scenes were sometimes pretty intense. Too bad it was censored.
It was also quite reckless with killing people or at least injuring them really badly. For such a childish show it was pretty grim, I enjoyed that as well.

Scores:

Story 2/10

Premise and Setting 0 (silly premise with bad execution)
Pacing -1 (rushed)
Complexity 0 (so simple and unexplored)
Plausibility -1 (plotholes and overall coherent issues)
Conclusion -1 (No real ending just a preview for season 2)

Characters 4/10

Personality -1 (weak)
Behavior and Chemistry 0 (silly but sometimes enjoyable)
Development and Progression 0 (very undetectable, but not entirely absent)
Motivation and Backdrop 0 (also weak but there)
Likability 0 (no one stood out)

Art and Animation 3/10

Artstyle 0 (generic)
Quality 0 (okay)
Background -1 (so boring)
Character Designs -1 (really bad)
Visual Effects 0 (okay but censorship was annoying!)

Sound 5/10

Voice Acting 0 (standard)
Opening and Ending 0 (solid opening and ending song)
Soundtrack 0 ( not great but listenable)
Sound Effects 0 (average)

Enjoyment 4/10

Art and Animation -1 (too cheap to enjoy)
Sound 0 (too average to enjoy)
Story and Content 0 (mess but fanservice kept me going)
Characters 0 (so-so)
Value 0 (forgettable)

Conclusion:

Wasted ideas and themes is all that Dansai Bunri is. If you are looking for a good action show, turn away. If you want some weird fanservice you might get something out of this. But overall it was a pretty bad show.

Pros:
+ Bold sexual scenes
+ sometimes bad ass violence and action

Cons:
- weak story presentation
- amateurish production values
- bland characters
- no real ending

3,6/10
~4/10 (Bad)